Gran's Tracks
by Bronze Cuirass
Summary: Sometimes Zero leaves Gran's marks on the ground. Sometimes he doesn't. Why can't he just keep that weapon behind his back and save some travelling time and nature?


**A/N:** This is my first attempt at writing fanfics, and at portraying Zero and Grandark. Hopefully they're not too out of character.

Reviews and favourites are greatly appreciated!

**Disclaimer:** Grand Chase and its characters belong to their rightful owner/s.

* * *

The swordsman ambled through the rocky corridors, silently taking note of the tall spires that were spiralled with thick tendrils of rock—as if to mimic the way in which vines would creep on a solid wall. Craters on the steeples snugly held gems, their lusters not ceasing, even though the place reeked of gloom and chill. The vagabond was pretty sure that they weren't shimmering, just glowing, and that did nothing to intermit the rising creepiness factor the place possessed.

_A castle_, he thought, _this certainly looks nothing like one of those 'castles'. Feels more like a jungle, if I dare to be honest._

Zero, the swordsman, paced himself as he moved, hard determination etched onto his face. The bottom half, at least.

Strapped behind him was a gigantic sword, and upon further inspection, there was an eyeball placed just below the guard and shoulder of the blade. Judging from the looks of it, the weapon was scanning the surroundings like a curious infant. Its eye squinted as it stared into nothing, a few spikes slowly protruding from its length, while a few ebbed back in. Zero doggedly walked forward, despite the increasing heaviness he was feeling. The vagabond was mulish beyond words, and persistence is his creed—he isn't going to back down just because his weapon is suddenly gaining weight. He swore to the Creator God that if Grandark, the sword, was a girl, he would never be able to wield her again if she heard that thought out loud. The musing was unpleasant and he pushed it to the back of his mind, where, hopefully, he'll never have to revisit it again. His brain may be artificial, but it functions just as well as a normal demon's, and perhaps he was even smarter than your average Asmodian. This might be why he still remembers a lot of things, even the unnecessary ones. It absolutely vexed him to no end.

His cognitive intelligence vastly outshined Oz's first creation's, but it was only because the old wizard forgot to put the smart circuit in the prototype's psyche.

Brains and brawn—he's got both of those, and just because a legendary sword was making a prelude to his tantrum, it would still not make the swordsman be the knight in shining armour to heed his every instruction, and to respond with a genuflect to every beckon.

Grandark made a low, hissing sound, which set Zero off a little. He tilted his head and lent an ear to the weapon, abandoning his pride at that very moment. Okay, maybe this sword was _the_ exception.

When no reply came to his ears, he shrugged it off and continued walking.

'Zero!'

Not until Grandark barked at him, voice dripping with despotism.

_Come on, Gran...not now. _The weight on his back was getting a little too cumbersome for him to ignore, and he immediately addressed the situation by tightening the straps around the blade, hoping that it would lessen the ponderousness of it. _We have to move._

'Zero,' Grandark called out a second time, a wee more hushed, its viridescent eye rolling towards the north as if to look at the demon's face. 'It's time for _that_ again.'

_Oh no, _The wanderer grit his teeth and snorted. _Not that again._

"To tarry here now would not be the wisest choice," Zero snapped, giving him an exhausted look. "The faster we move, the quicker we'll reach our goal."

'Right,' Grandark chortled, knowing all too well that his wielder had no idea where to go. Specifically, that is. 'So, I guess this means we'll be meandering about the whole of Ernas for quite some time, am I correct?'

Zero growled in annoyance.

'If I _am_ correct—which, without a doubt, I would be—that sounds pretty time consuming. The whole walking and all.' If the sword had a face, Zero swore that he would see a wide smirk encompassing the bottom half of it. 'What're a few, meagre minutes to all of that discovering and adventuring? I just want us to stop for a while. A _short_ while.'

"Those minutes may seem little at first, but when they pile up, they can be quite huge and amount to hours. Maybe even years."

The sword couldn't help but guffaw at how everything escalated so quickly.

'You're impossible.'

"I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you, Gran."

'It wasn't.'

"Oh well."

'But—!'

"..."

'It hurts like hell!'

"..seriously?" the vagabond deadpanned, a tinge of disbelief lacing his inquiry.

'I'm the most honest person you'll ever talk to.'

"You're a sword."

'Well, I never—that doesn't matter!'

"It does."

After what seemed to be an eternity of banters and badmouthing, Grandark had finally convinced the wanderer to 'come to his aid'. How he had achieved it—it was something his wielder wasn't quite pleased with.

"You and your sharp tongue..." he set Grandark down and started to rake the tip of it against the rocky ground, absorbing sharp, ear-splitting sounds that rang painfully in his ears. Zero felt as if his eardrums would break and that the canals would misshape from the intensity of the shrieking sounds, almost imagining the violaceous milieu of the castle shift from a bluish purple to a fiery red. "This will be the last time you'll ever finagle me, Gran. I learn. I learn from all of your dirty tricks, and the next time I catch you pulling a fast one on me again, I'll—"

'Yeah, yeah, that's the spot! I'm a little itchy to my left as well.'

"..."

He was being ignored. Zero didn't like it and grunted, accidentally shifting the weapon's position to the complete opposite side of what it requested.

'Hey! I told you to _my_ left, not yours!'

"You shouldn't even have a sense of direction."

'But I do.'

"Then shouldn't your left be the same as mine?" the vagabond asked, holding his left hand out for him to see. Grandark merely squinted his eye at him, as if to scrutinize the demon's mental abilities. Zero felt the cold, harsh mockery emanate from that one eye.

'Then you don't know how to hold a sword properly. The hilt's like my very own leg.'

_Hah, a leg? _A smile escaped Zero's lips, his creased face relaxing. Having forgotten the scolding he had received just a moment ago, he sputtered out, almost unwittingly, "Really, Gran? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard from you yet."

'Bah, just get on with it.'

* * *

After much grinding, raking, and all around scratching, Grandark's itchiness was finally appeased and Zero could now continue his journey without any interruptions. For now.

* * *

The next time he needed a good scratch again, Zero was a wee more mindful of the time they were wasting, so he disagreed to his pleas at first. A bickering occurred, and the two finally agreed that Zero would just drag him around while walking. It slows down the pace, but at least he doesn't have to fully stop and cater to the legendary weapon's needs.

Zero tells him that it's just a want of his, but Grandark says otherwise. He tells the vagabond that it keeps him sharp and ready for battle.

He begs to differ. Grandark had _always_ been sharp—regardless of the scratching sessions.

* * *

After a multitude of minutes and hours, one of the members of a ragtag bunch of adventurers, the Grand Chase, spotted the marks Zero and Grandark left behind. Ryan, being the nature fanatic he was, had immediately descried the odd craterlike indentations. Ronan supplied to this discovery by recollecting the rumours he had heard from places all over Ernas, and so did Arme.

It wasn't until a redhead redirected their thoughts to the approaching monsters ahead did they snap out of their little palavers.


End file.
